Bell, Book, and Scandal (19 page)

When Shelley and Jane entered the meeting room a little bit late for the closing ceremonies, the first thing Jane noticed was that it was an enormous room. Shelley, who knew a lot about hotels, understood. Jane didn't.

"Isn't this where the small rooms were yesterday? Or wasn't I paying enough attention to know where we are?"

"Those rooms for the seminars
are
this room. Look at the breakdown walls where the former walls have been hidden."

"What a great idea! I'd never have guessed. And look at that food!"

Shelley swiveled around and gawked. The back of the room was lined with draped tables that bore an almost alarming assortment of food: sandwiches, chips, dips, salads, desserts, and drinks.

"We really should have read the brochure!" Shelley exclaimed. "Now we've already ruined our appetites for all this gorgeous stuff."

"I haven't," Jane admitted. "We only snacked. Why are these people dressed so weirdly?"

Studying the crowd, Jane felt as if she were at a Halloween party for grown-ups. A great many of the attendees were in costume. Jane and Shelley stood in the long line for food and glanced around and discovered at least three Arthur Conan Doyles, two of them accompanied by his creation, Sherlock Holmes. The third one was with a group of women who were dressed as grubby little boys — Doyle's Baker Street Irregulars.

There were also at least half a dozen Miss Marples with their knitting, prissy dresses, purses, and frumpy hats. Several men and a few women had attended as Hercule Poirot.

There was a whole flock of 1930s butlers in their black uniforms who were gathered together laughing. A few maids of the same era, somequite glamorous, were on the fringes of this boisterous group, with drinks on plastic trays.

Many of the costumes eluded them. Several ladies were dressed in floral clothing from the Golden Era of Mystery, with big floppy hats and strings of cheap fake pearls. These must have been minor characters from books featuring deadly garden parties. One gentleman wore golf trousers that Jane remembered were called bags and looked a bit like the huge flapping jeans that teenage boys wore nowadays. Except that they were gaitered up at the knees.

Shelley muttered, "You'd have to put a cattle prod to my temple to force me to dress up like that."

"I think it's sort of cute. But for myself, I agree. Hey, Shelley, let's have our pictures taken with the butlers and maids."

"Heaven forbid!"

"Don't be a spoilsport," Jane said as they finally approached the food tables.

They loaded up on tiny ham sandwiches, chips, dips, salads, and desserts as if they hadn't eaten for weeks, then looked for a place to sit. Tables for eight were scattered through the room. Some were fully occupied. Most had a few empty spots. They spotted Felicity, surrounded by fans, and Jane put down her drink in order to slip Felicity's lunch bill into her hand. She was blessed with a grateful smile and a wink.

"We want a table with two places together,

don't we?" Jane asked Shelley as they balanced their full plates and wove their way with caution through the banquet room.

Neither of them was still wearing her tag and most of the others weren't either, so when they found a spot and asked if they could join the strangers, they were welcomed with introductions. Shelley said she was Enid Potts and Jane said she was Olga Strange.

There were two published authors at the table who cheered them and asked them to sign their copies of Miss Mystery's picture for posterity. Obviously they'd checked Miss Mystery's web site this morning.

Shelley said, "We are
not
lesbians, we're neighbors; Enid and Olga aren't our real names; and neither of us has ever been to Alaska."

The authors laughed heartily about how well they'd misled Miss Mystery.

Jane whispered to Shelley, "Aren't you glad we didn't go home earlier? It's fun to pretend to be celebrities. We should grab a few of these pictures if they're still around and sign them to ourselves."

A man lurched by their table. A very tall man, wearing heavy shoes that looked as if they'd been built up somehow to make him taller. Jane glimpsed him in profile as he passed, and saw that he was wearing a Frankenstein mask.

"Who's that?" Jane asked the man sitting next to her.

'Sophie Smith's assistant. Corey or some name like that," he said.

"Corwin," Jane muttered. He was the last person, aside from Sophie Smith, she would have expected to be in costume. He reminded her of the horrifying glass man in her awful dream. Something about the way he moved. She involuntarily shuddered and tried to put away the memory.

"Are you cold?" Shelley asked.

"No. Someone just walked over my grave."

"I wonder where that old phrase comes from?" Shelley said, setting off quite a discussion among the others at the table.

The talk then veered to whether
Frankenstein
was really classed as a mystery. Most thought it was, but one woman claimed it was a twisted love story. The man sitting next to Jane declared it pure horror.

Soon waiters hovered nervously from table to table, asking people if they were finished and clearing plates. Another crew of wait staff was taking away the food that was left on the serving tables, and leaving only the drinks.

At the head table, which had been empty during the meal, half a dozen people started assembling. The room became quiet and a short woman took the podium and fiddled with the microphone, finally forcing it down far enough to be heard.

"I hope all of you have enjoyed this conference as much as we have." She went on to call on all

the committee heads to stand up and be introduced and applauded. Then she introduced herself and the rest of the people at the head table.

"These are our judges in the various categories of costumes. Now line up in like groups, you clever impostors," she instructed cheerfully.

While those who were in costumes straggled into line on the right side of the head table, the speaker went on, "We have no real rules, understand. It's all personal opinion. In each group of the same characters, whoever we vote the best representation will win a twenty-dollar gift certificate to next year's conference. Those who are in a category by themselves will receive a five-dollar gift certificate to be redeemed by one of the wonderful bookstore owners who served us all so well over the last few days."

The parade began with the butlers walking one at a time before the judges. Some bowed. Some said, in fake British accents, "Would master like a glass of port?" They were all hams.

Next were the maids, then the Poirots, the Miss Marples, the three Conan Doyles, the Sherlocks, the whole group of Baker Street Irregulars, and the assorted miscellaneous imitations who explained whom they represented. Corwin wasn't anywhere in the lineup, Jane noticed. She glanced around and saw him at the drinks table pouring a soft drink, then winding his way to the table where Sophie sat in solitary splendor. She looked unusually grumpy.

"Let's just sit
here
for a bit and finish our coffee," Jane said. "The elevators will be mobbed."

She turned slightly to make sure Sophie was doing the same thing. Corwin had tossed his Frankenstein face in the trash and discarded the oversized paper coat he'd worn. He was changing his shoes when Sophie spoke to him harshly. Jane couldn't hear the words. Sophie's expression told her.

As Corwin rose, Jane said, "I've changed my mind. This coffee is cold and icky. Let's go."

Shelley raised an eyebrow and asked, "Why are you so fidgety?"

"I've had another Frederic Remington moment. The little bell that kept dinging in the back of my head finally spit it out. Come on. We want to be on the right elevator."

Shelley sighed and took a last sip of her coffee and followed Jane. As they crossed the lobby briskly, Shelley said, "Tell me what this is about."

"No time. And I don't want to rehearse it."

They forced themselves into a crowded elevator and stepped out on their floor. Jane dawdled, pretending to be searching her purse for the room key. Then she suddenly said, "I found it," holding up the key. Shelley showed her that she'd had her own key in her hand the entire time.

Corwin had stepped into Sophie's suite and propped the door open to carry out his and Sophie's luggage. Jane stopped just before they reached the door and peeked in the room. There was no sign of Corwin. He was probably in the bathroom washing off the smell of the rubber mask. She stepped inside, all but dragging Shelley behind her. Removing the doorstop and quietly closing the door, she gestured at the sofa and whispered, "Let's sit down."

"I don't think this is a good idea," Shelley said in a slightly shaky voice.

"We're in no danger. I have the upper hand," Jane replied.

Corwin returned with his suitcase and was stunned to see them. "What are you two doing here? Get out!"

"You have a choice to make. Let me have my say or I'll follow you down and ask you a few questions in Sophie Smith's presence," Jane said. "Which will it be?"

Corwin slammed down the suitcase on a chair and said, "Then proceed with it. Sophie's waiting for me."

Jane asked in a bland voice, "When we were allin this room, and Sophie told you to call the Strausmanns and tell them to come up here, you asked them on the phone if they remembered the room number."

"Did I? So what?"

"Had they been here before?"

"Only briefly. The morning Ms. Smith came back from the hospital," he said.

"Shelley, would you go downstairs and ask Ms. Smith if that's true, if you wouldn't mind?"

"No!" Corwin said, turning pale. "Sophie had invited them to come up for a drink after the dessert party, and, of course, Sophie was in the hospital by that time. They caught up with me at the party and begged to come up for a drink anyway. I didn't see any harm in it."

"I understand," Jane said, still in a calm but firm voice. "It was a good way to confront them with the fact that they'd stolen Sophie's copy of Zac's book, right?"

"It never crossed my mind to say that. I have no idea where the book went. Ms. Smith probably just threw it away."

"Shelley, I think that's another thing you might want to ask Ms. Smith."

"No!" Corwin said in an angrier voice than last time. "Get out of here, you nosy bitches." He picked his suitcase back up and headed for Sophie's room to fetch her luggage.

Jane didn't move. She said, barely loud enough for him to hear from the next room, "I'll tell you

what really happened. Or I'll follow you down and tell you in front of Sophie Smith if that's what you prefer."

Corwin strolled back into the room, having regained his wits. "What happens next if I agree to listen?"

"Absolutely nothing," Jane said with what she hoped was a cheerful smile. "You'll leave this room with the luggage and cope with what you've done all by yourself. And my guess is that you didn't invite them up after the dessert party. You invited them while Ms. Smith was out shopping that first morning to set up both the poisoned chocolates and the theft of Zac's book."

He thought a moment, then slumped into the sofa opposite them, rubbing his eyes. When he looked up, he said, "I despise Sophie. She treats me like a dog on a leash and won't let go of me."

"We know that," Shelley put in, since it finally seemed to be going well for Jane.

"I received Vernetta's manuscript and it was so awful I couldn't believe it found its way past the first reader," Corwin said. "But something about the early part caught my attention. Way back when I was a lowly copy editor, I'd been forced to edit Zac's book, and a couple of especially bad phrases seemed familiar."

"That's how I found it, too, sort of," Shelley said.

Jane nudged her slightly so as to give her the hint to not interrupt Corwin's train of thought now that he'd decided to confess.

He went on, "I thought it was a way to escape from Sophie without her being able to convince anyone else in the business that I was a horrible employee. That's what she'd have done to me for certain if I'd quit."

Both Jane and Shelley nodded agreement.

"The stroke of luck was that Sophie didn't read it. She said it was too long and she was too busy," Corwin went on. "She glanced through it for about two minutes and suggested I ask the guy who owns the publishing company how he felt about it. She thought he'd be flattered that the great Sophie Smith asked his opinion. And he
was
flattered. Of course, he'd probably never read anything except corporate reports, so he didn't read it either, simply approved the huge advance I'd told Sophie she'd have to pay to gain the publicity to make a bestseller of it."

He stood up and said, "I need a drink of water," then left the room for a moment.

When he returned a moment later, he went on, "I thought I was home free until Zac handed Sophie a copy of his book. As soon as she went to the hospital, I threw it in the trash bin outside the front of the hotel and buried it under some newspapers.

"When Sophie called later and wanted me to bring it over to her at the hospital, I said I couldn't find it, and thought I'd dodged the bullet. Until she told me to tell Zac to find her another copy. God knows why she wanted it. She

knows Zac is a terrible writer. I didn't hear, however, what he said to her to convince her she needed to read it."

"So you had to attack Zac when he brought back another copy?" Jane said mildly, even though the very words revolted her.

His face grew very red instantly and he nearly shouted, "I did
not
attack him. I'd seen where he parked his van and knew how far away he lived and waited for him to come back to the same spot, which was in sort of a secret parking area most people didn't know about. As he parked, I walked up to the van, but then suddenly he ducked down and disappeared. This alarmed me, and I jerked open the door. He was apparently leaning way over and holding on to the handle to keep his balance and he fell out of the van."